Abstract
Abstract. DHAKSHA, the unmanned aircraft system (UAS), developed after several years of research by Division of Avionics, Department of Aerospace Engineering, MIT Campus of Anna University has recently proved its capabilities during May 2012 Technology demonstration called UAVforge organised by Defence Research Project Agency, Department of Defence, USA. Team Dhaksha with its most stable design outperformed all the other contestants competing against some of the best engineers from prestigi ous institutions across the globe like Middlesex University from UK, NTU and NUS from Singapore, Tudelft Technical University, Netherlands and other UAV industry participants in the world's toughest UAV challenge. This has opened up an opportunity for Indian UAVs making a presence in the international scenario as well. In furtherance to the above effort at Fort Stewart military base at Georgia,USA, with suitable payloads, the Dhaksha team deployed the UAV in a religious temple festival during November 2012 at Thiruvannamalai District for Tamil Nadu Police to avail the instant aerial imagery services over the crowd of 10 lakhs pilgrims and also about the investigation of the structural strength of the India's tallest structure, the 300 m RCC tower during January 2013. The developed system consists of a custom-built Rotary Wing model with on-board navigation, guidance and control systems (NGC) and ground control station (GCS), for mission planning, remote access, manual overrides and imagery related computations. The mission is to fulfill the competition requirements by using an UAS capable of providing complete solution for the stated problem. In this work the effort to produce multirotor unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for civilian applications at the MIT, Avionics Laboratory is presented
Highlights
The unmanned aerial system (UAS) based remote sensing with low-weight imaging systems offers low-cost and flexible tools for the various civilian applications
Manual overriding of Autonomous mode to Manual mode and vice versa programmed.The NGC Block diagram is as shown in Fig.[9]: Figure 6 Unfiltered sensor output for roll angle In Figure 6 it is clearly seen that the signal is almost disappeared under the noise
The UAV was controlled by setting waypoints on a digital map by means of special software running on a common laptop or Tablet PC
Summary
The unmanned aerial system (UAS) based remote sensing with low-weight imaging systems offers low-cost and flexible tools for the various civilian applications. Team DHAKSHA’s current prototype design looks like a eight rotor helicopter, which a single person can carry and operate reliably and safely in adverse weather conditions, providing instant imagery anytime an aerial vantage point is needed. The operator uses a small portable control unit to command it to hover or fly in any direction at varying speeds. Video imagery is transmitted to the handheld ground control station and distributed to decision makers for real-time viewing. The team is exploring the various possibilities of self powered solar UAVs and UAV for radiation surveillance in and around nuclear power stations and unmanned riot control applications. As the world is increasingly moving towards automation and from manned to unmanned systems, the system can be deployed for various cartographical, agriculture, forestry, urbanism, traffic management, civil safety, protected areas
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